Published – Idaho State Journal, 09/16/12
While we enjoy relative tranquility here at home, the Muslim
world is erupting in a conflagration of Islamic fundamentalist protests,
destruction, and murder. What started as timed terrorist attacks on U.S.
embassies in Egypt and Libya on the eleventh anniversary of the attacks of
9/11, has turned into full-scale demonstrations of destruction fueled by an
amateur video purportedly critical of their prophet Mohammed.
What started with the Arab Spring nearly two years ago, a
democratic movement which led to the ousting of strong-arm leaders Khadafy in
Libya and Mubarak in Egypt, has evolved into an Arab Fall, and likely an Arab
Winter of icy relations with the Muslim world. Perhaps it is nothing more than
the morphing of “hope and change” to despair and violence, induced by the
Islamic extremist realities of the region.
Four embassy personnel were mercilessly murdered at the
consulate in Libya, including our ambassador and two former Navy Seals, who
we’ve learned remarkably, were forbidden by the State Department from being
issued live ammunition to protect the embassy staff. The Washington Times
reports that Ambassador Chris Stevens was raped before he was murdered.
This week U.S. embassies have been under siege in Morocco,
Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Israel, Iraq, and Yemen, and U.S. companies and
interests targeted in Iran and London. And with all of this occurring, the
president chose to skip his intelligence update to make a campaign trip to Las
Vegas. In a taped message to campaign workers in Nevada, he imprudently
compared them to those demonstrating in the Muslim world striving for a better
world.
Some of the visual references this week remind us just how
the radical elements of Islam challenge the notion that it’s a “religion of
peace.” Graffiti written on the walls of the U.S. embassy in Cairo, “Take care
America. We have one and a half billion bin Ladins,” as well as banners outside
the U.S. embassy in London, which read, “Muslims will eventually conquer
America,” do nothing to assuage our concerns of the intolerance of Islamic
extremism.
There are also the aural reminders that the Muslim world has
not taken kindly to the killing of Osama bin Ladin. Raw video captured by Middle
East Media Research Institute shows the mob that attacked the Egyptian embassy
was chanting, “Obama, Obama, we’re all Osama.” Perhaps it has been ill-advised
to trumpet the killing of Osama. And all of this animus is targeted at the U.S.
in spite of billions of dollars we give in foreign aid to Muslim countries, and
surprisingly, one week after the administration “forgave” a $1 billion dollar,
taxpayer funded loan to Egypt.
The Independent, a UK based news outlet reported that according
to senior diplomatic sources, the State Department “had credible information 48
hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo,
that American missions may be targeted.” Yet no warnings were issued to
consulates or embassies in affected areas, and the administration has denied
the existence of such intelligence.
While there is no codex identifying specific tenets of the
Obama Doctrine, foreign policy experts classify the Obama foreign policy of
outreach and deference shown to Islam as its basis. The Obama Doctrine was
aptly characterized by what critics called his “Apology Tour” at the beginning
of his presidency, denouncing and apologizing for what he deemed to be American
arrogance, dismissiveness, and derision shown to the Muslim states. Exemplary
of the doctrine is the redefinition of one of NASA’s primary objectives to be
an “outreach” to Muslims. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John
Bolton, has described the Obama Doctrine as “overly idealistic and naïve,
promoting appeasement” to those who seek our destruction.
Perhaps what we are witnessing across the globe today is the
collapse of the Obama Doctrine, and as Obama’s former preacher might say, his
“chickens are coming home to roost.”
Some have compared the failed policies of Jimmy Carter to
the collapse of the Obama Doctrine. There certainly are similarities as both
administrations allowed U.S. allied regimes to be toppled, leading to states
founded in Islamic fundamentalism, solidified by anti-American hatred. For
Carter, it was Iran, and for Obama, it’s Egypt and Libya.
Showing that he himself “shoots first and aims later,” the
president said on Thursday that the U.S. would not consider Egypt an ally,
"but we don't consider them an enemy."
On 9/11, the day our Cairo embassy was attacked, the embassy
released a statement saying, “The Embassy of the United States in Cairo
condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious
feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all
religions.” Rather than condemning those who perpetrate violence in the name of
Allah, the statement targeted the producer of the obscure film that was
critical of Muhammad.
Problematic throughout the Obama Doctrine era has been the
cozy relationship between administration officials and the Muslim Brotherhood,
a militaristic political entity that that spawned al-Qaida and Hamas and was
instrumental in toppling the Libyan and Egyptian regimes. In April, a
delegation of the Muslim Brotherhood made an official visit to the White House.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin has been
confirmed to have formerly been involved with the group. David Horowitz has
produced an ebook documenting associations between the Muslim Brotherhood and
the administration, titled “The Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama
Administration.”
The President has requested an audience this month with Egyptian
President Mohamed Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate who won Egypt’s
presidential election, while spurning a request by Israel’s Prime Minister,
Benjamin Netanyahu, to meet this month as well. It’s difficult to explain how a
sitting U.S. president can spurn a request for a visit from one of our “closest
allies” while requesting an audience with a Muslim Brotherhood president of a
nation that Obama doesn’t think is our ally, nor think they’re our enemy,
either. The president also confirmed this week that he’ll appear with David
Letterman on his show next week, adding insult to injury with Prime Minister
Netanyahu.
Former Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz this week indicated that Obama’s cozy
relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood is troubling. And that due to the
Obama Doctrine, regimes and Muslim country leaders can’t trust America to do
the right thing, as evidenced by leaving Iraq after deposing a dictator, and
Afghanistan after toppling a totalitarian Taliban regime. The administration
actively supported the toppling of the Mubarak regime in Egypt, praising the
democratic Arab Spring uprising, and militarily attacked Khadafy’s Libya to
oust him.
The violence is
spreading outside of the Muslim nations. Attacks on the U.S. embassy in London,
as well as bomb threats at North Dakota State and the University of Texas in
Austin validate concerns that anti-American violence can spread quickly,
jumping oceans and geographic barriers to threaten Americans and U.S. interests
everywhere. The caller of the bomb threat to the University of Texas claimed to
represent al-Qaida.
Whatever the motivation, the threats and violence of
terrorism are evil. The cozier our relationship with perpetrators of such vile
acts as we’ve witnessed this past week is, the more compromised and susceptible
we are to manipulation by those very elements. With the collapse of the Obama
Doctrine of foreign policy, it’s clear that a new foreign policy is needed,
based in reality, not on something as obviously tenuous as “Muslim Outreach.”
AP award winning
columnist Richard Larsen is President of Larsen Financial, a brokerage and
financial planning firm in Pocatello, and is a graduate of Idaho State
University with a BA in Political Science and History and former member of the
Idaho State Journal Editorial Board. He
can be reached at rlarsenen@cableone.net.